


cinnamon

by ruruka



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, break ups, future foundation canon, sex drinking swearing etc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 18:06:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13576068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruruka/pseuds/ruruka
Summary: togami and naegi have issues.





	cinnamon

**Author's Note:**

> i do realize this is very long for a single chapter work. have fun.

"wha...whadaya mean, it's over?"

it's a horrifically sunny morning. the copier whirs warm beneath his waiting touch. he's impatient when he's tired.

(he's impatient when he's rested, but that's beside the point).

"is it...my fault?" her voice is a hundred beats to dolor, thick in withered petals and sour harp plucks from the tongue.

paper creeps hot inked from the front slot. his snatch runs harsh, worse still rolling contempt blown in a scoff. "...no, asahina. this has nothing to do with you."

where he'd intended a bite sounds more patting hands on the shoulder, takes his head a rattling mad as he pulls a sharp u turn. and he's scowling, right on cue, though can't mend its melt to face the milky wet threatening this morning's mascara.

"i'm so sorry, togami," says her weepy little tremble. the lift to either arm signals his body to flinch inward only mild; he's expected a cinch about the ribs in vomit inducting empathy, though they're of equal blindsiding to a crunch of muscles drawn forth to another's.

"i love you, togamichi!" he'd been lost in the shuffling, very nearly, placed tall and never the prim behind asahina in his thirteenth water break of the morning. _you look tired, togamichi_ , he'd said to him behind the paper cup gnaw, and his face had taken to juvenile starshine, _up late last night with naegichi, eh, eh?_

he'd slipped his document in the copy machine, told him they'd broken up yesterday evening, and continued on his task. the coughed exhale of water mars still the office hall carpeting.

certainly his suit shoulder matches in darkened patches of eye corners gushed. "hagakure," clicks his teeth torn, "let go of me."

light crawls in through the tall toned plate glass, filters past maple wood, muted gray. it casts a glint to his tilted lens the direction of blown glass incinerating. he doesn't need to hear those dulled to carpet heels clacking alongside, _feels_ it instead, brutal to the bone. kirigiri chooses no glance their way on her stride past. molars clench to a close shattering.

asahina's eyes zip over her shoulder, a millisecond dare before they place back to catch togami being released in lone standing. "so...do we have to stop being friends with naegi, now?"

a hundred and one things bash his skull in. kirigiri's refusal to stare their way through the purposeful ajar of her office door just diagonal serves the role of the first mallet's strike; a concussion forms to his drop back straightened and the sheet in his grasp ruined to a seismic crumpling. he turns to the copier again, strikes a finger along the keypad in memory to the most recent head trauma.

"no, asahina." he sighs, idle, because he doesn't delight in palavering on about his life being destroyed quite literally over the water cooler, throat a pulsing, too, to know where the first phantom sweeps in, lavender and eminence, the second is never far behind. he'd slip a million note lotto winner aside the initial document could it coax it to move faster.

ursa major drops a paw to his shoulder, clenches the other to a fist at the chest. "don't worry, we side with you!" hagakure's grin rests a stark bold to reassure. the strings are pulled into unraveling fast, a mower tugged in thought. "but...naegichi's a great friend, too, and he brings banana bread to the break room sometimes, i wouldn't want to miss out on-"

"would you just _shut up_ about naegi?" temper pricks his flesh. when he goes to whip a hissing fresh over, electricity mingles betwixt caught glances.

"naegichi!" the weight drops from his shoulder to flip high a ways, though the wheel spins and he thinks better of it in a clear of the throat. "i mean...hello, naegi...san."

togami decides it's suicide to walk eyes along the new heat to the hall's entry, the way naegi tilts his chin the sidelong to curiosity, smile plastered a wavering ekg to settle on, "good morning, hagakure. hi, asahina." they exchange paired grins and she waves to him, though strolls a similar route to discipline and leaves it to a clutch behind her back with melty saltwater pops downcast for shadows. naegi drags and drops a gaze upon the corner's final, where he's just too blatant the film reel to hide his plummeted charisma. "good morning...togami."

he decides to work through lunch.

the early afternoon is a bagged corpse dragged laggard into evening. it's not that he's shredded a dozen hundred feelings in the focus of paperwork the day through, it's that he's a diligent worker, honorable, and the extra one twenty spent after his routine clock out five the night's gone past are because he'd been meaning to get caught up on his stapling.

a twelve hour day to follow a two hour sleep pours cement beneath the waterlines. togami stands, togami switches the desk lamp off shoulders his canvas bag pushes his desk chair in as always he so does, and it's just convenient that he's no one to call after dawdling chatter caught through attempted exit, and it's just convenient that kirigiri's standing at the copy machine at the adjacent corner to his clicked hush office door.

she looks at him, the first glance spared the full day, spears his veins in shingle lip frost fallen sharp. leather runs along spitting white sheets. but she's looking at him, and far be it from him to stuff a tail betwixt his thighs and slink past, keeps his chin fine lined high to match her as an equal. the building is pin drop post concert quiet, divisions cleared out for dinners, drives, coveted relax. but she's looking at him, because the so refined so pristine fourteenth branch head clocks in at six and never a day has she taken leave before sunset (except the week in early august when her tint windowed altima had given in to its 2003 registration, and she'd kicked along in the backseat of his newly turned carpool to the neat threat of _now or never_ , and to think now upon that and that she can still _look at him_ like this chokes him at the wrists).

"you need to come in earlier tomorrow," kirigiri says.

he drops the fireball twinge to gawk a half second, clips to glower all over for his chagrin. "i don't," he assures her, because he knows his five:fifty five wake time six am rise time shower time primp time six:thirty ditch the driveway time six:fifty arrival time/seven with traffic time would not be disturbed were the midst of those routine points doused in hands rubbed to chest and five more minutes begged groggy, _let's conserve water today hehehe._

taut rimmed lilac curves to a sliced mango thin, not in ire never in it a visual, and she taps her warm printouts to the copier's top. "you're acting head. start acting."

he'd like to cuff her fresh for that one, but he's too much the tight toed armani gentleman. "oh, kyouko," he catches instead, shovels earth atop his smirk to envision the flash through her eyes now turned long to clip back to office, now turned over shoulder to clip his skin bruised. "you're sure this business alone, correct? nothing personal?"

arithmetic runs through her skull- he can smell it. a hand draws silk behind an ear, and she's a shadow melted from the mouth to say back, "it isn't business that i was up all night playing therapist." her heel grates the rug grates his nerves grates his tongue. "you're in debt half a box of kleenex to me."

they exchange no second longer a stare, knob clinking to slot in an echo along his teeth.

the front porch light glows honey to touch run past sensors. good. now he can see that he's stuffed the side door key miserably inside the front. soles go carried on evening moon's exhaling.

togami thinks he needs to eat.

there's a styrofoam container half full of curry rice in his instant line of vision tugging open the refrigerator.

togami thinks he needs to sleep.

navy green cotton threads together sleeves, pockets, hood. circulation. it rests tossed over the cedar chest at the headboard's bottom end.

togami thinks he needs to sit in his hardwood home office and sear his eyes upon computer screen shine all hours unto the night.

he'll work til midnight, get five hours rest and press his card to the clock as it reads six:forty five. that's earlier than usual.

hardly ever could he remain strong in this plight, running on e a paired day straight, wouldn't find his spine cricked a crowbar past ten on the hardest nights. he'd had hobbies. he'd had time to split for arms wrapped warm in evening break. and work a close lead had worn him thorough, always has and is sure to, but the nearest planned mission off a ways is in the first lick of summer, and there's only so much stapling a man can do before papers thin to null. work has slowed just in time for him to have some fucking time. were he a poet, he'd delight in the irony.

silence never bothers him, but he's been meaning to listen to the internet's myriad wall to wall of ambient noise playlists. twigs crackle neath fox steps from his speakers. gusting wind moves his fingers across the keys.

two am rolls onto his wrist, where every other letter typed needs its clone backspaced. maybe it's the exhaustion that brings him to such quakes of sinew. maybe it's the dark brewed luwak. the mug draws to his yearning mouth, and in its reversal to a refill at the rim, he isn't sure whether to call it his seventh of the night or first of the day, because things like that tend to bleed together on zero hour rest.

the break room's open archway gains clicked steps; the way his neck decides a snapping pulls him to bear paralysis. but he need not the fret, the birthday candle prodding deep nestled trachea. pump thin stilettos drag up to find her entrance, one that pauses as though thumped nose to glass as she takes sight of him. he's casual, now at least, sheltered back to melting sugar through his cup and refusing her meaningless eye. some curvy blonde from another division. someone he's no time for.

"morning, togami," she bows to his statue struck frame. he'd remember her name if he tried enough. clicks go over tile toward the corner set fridge, and she's turned a circle round with a hip to close it and hands captured by plastic. he watches her peel the sticky note marked _asano!_ from the top of her yogurt cup.

(he never said anything about trying hard).

when she speaks again, she's muffled by tongue swept over lid in a long syllable. "ah, togami." powder blue glints against its match, bored. "i know you're...going through a hard time right now, but if you need someone to talk to, i'm just around the corner!"

the happy go lucky sparking her teeth draws his knuckles whiter. a spoon dips into her breakfast, and she's on her merry little way back through the hall, just around the corner.

he regrets not spitting coffee in her face. it'd be unprofessional of him to seek such violence, though he'd call it the same to intrude a broom tip poking at dust. and whoever's spread his business about so quick as wildfire, he'd drag them by the collar to consequences if the head of hr didn't stink of vexation and old tahoe. long sips are a vial tipped back in sweltering heartburn.

and he _just_ makes it to his office door without wanting to vomit, _just_ presses a step to the threshold as the bile first rises.

"b...byakuya?"

something in him is delighted to answer to the call, whips about on zero hour sleep like a goddamn fool and pinches either cornered eye. he accepts no one's sympathy, because no one knows how much uglier fukawa is up close, how much worse her breath infects him when mingled with break room brew, saliva hot to a drip along bottom gloss. she's said it, said _byakuya?!_ in her caterwauling, and the idiot bound by knowing no else awaits her continuum with eyes lolling insipid.

she clasps her palms before herself, and all he can think about is the clear evidence that she's forgotten to brush the lemming nest attached to her scalp this morning. "i _haaa_ \- i heard about your b-break up," smashes ceramic atop his skull. "i want to offer my-my deepest condolences!"

lips tut sharply together, rest in a bite to cheek, tilt to hip. "i'd start by dropping the smile, then."

above it, stratus spirals poke to widened lids, and she nods so vigorous to mouth's steam iron. "ri-right, only smiling so much because you're so-you're so handsome this morning, _ahah_ \- p-please-please, accept my sorrow for master byakuya's broken heart!"

"no, thank you," he says in a sip. "your sorrow smells like cat shit."

vanilla frosted smoke wisps from his latching slam. he's sure to adjust the paper pull shade tighter down in its perpetual spot on the thick glassed square of a window.

everything is happening. his fingers grasp a fountain pen from his desk cup. it drawls perfected calligraphy along manila. everything. but- and its vain, but he can't find the point in running his life's plot forever on a single happening practically- _pff!_ practically already forgotten. life happens. move on. he hates that every other desperate vixen in the office is lusty rose colored with their newfound excuse to strike conversation with him. he hates it and he hates them, and he cannot fathom for his so happening life why it is that any woman holds hope to getting between the sheets of a man who washes them in lilac fabric softener.

shoulder blades meet the high imperial back to his chair. his head feels a rattling pain killer bottle, for all the more irony, rests it likewise tipped, rests lids, rests soul to a sigh through the nose. headache smolders strong within him to chatter patter waltzing along past the wooded walls, a thickness only a hagakure yasuhiro type person can penetrate on vocals alone. something or other about dibs on the front seat. something or other about _i had pizza for breakfast, naegichi, pick something else!_

and he remembers picking up that pen and he remembers leaning back in his rolling chair and resting his eyes, though he swears to sin it had just been seven am, nowhere near time to ditch on lunch break. his coffee sits a tepid malt when he sniffs it.

perhaps lunch would do him well.

grace is his arms through satin winter parka sleeves, pats the hip pocket for wallet, keys, all as he does an always. he's no place for slinking catlike long the walls to go translucent- he's no one to fear in his own domain (read: the world, _hah_ ) and no one left to avoid having heard the five feet of tension left already in search of a stuffed gut. a glance the next door over on his way along bears pallid porcelain shoving half a lettuce wrap in her mouth, and he'd spare the room no further mind were he not caught by blur across kirigiri's cluttered desk top; asahina springs an arm over the head waving to him after a pause in her prattling, and his legs are cindered in a brittle return. placated, she turns her grin back to their conversation. zero hours of sleep and twenty three years of development up building zips a smiling smooth over his mouth, and for as microscopic as the turned corners may be, they're dead nigh to his returned gait.

"oh!" naegi circles his mouth an estimated thirty thousand times round words that refuse him. "uh- hi, togami. ...forgot my keys, heh."

were the disc rewound a forty eight hour whine, he'd say he knows, and drop them in his palm and walk aside him with an arm curled about the waist. he'd say, _of course you did, makoto, i'm quite genuinely surprised you've kept track of your organs this long._ but today is today and today is everything that's never happened, so he nods one curt pull friend to friend and steps past him.

"uh, togami?" _one_ step. afternoon sizzles on his gargling middle. when he looks back, naegi's a goddamn mess beneath his trim, coats his hand in nape's sweltering. "i'm glad i ran into you actually, um- i...i, uh- kirigiri," and his head shakes, and his skin is molten, "i, um, i left kirigiri's velvet revolver cd in your car and she wants it back."

he _won't_ call it disappointment- never. "fine," is all he says, makes the target flinch unintentional though all the same a _fine_ outcome (funny he's funny) to take last before his exit. the asphalt's his bitch once he's clacking against it, hand to the waist and shadow quivering to be so near him. lunch, lunch! he's one hungry bastard, he'd say! tires plug park to reverse to gunned from the lot. he's one hungry goddamn bastard.

the early day has reached a peak warmth by the current, not sweet summer enough to sink the window, let sun kiss through his gold, but it makes him feel sexy and the smoke needs somewhere to go besides his upholstery. his engine purrs at a traffic light. cigarette to lips, he eyes down the center console.

- _and never means maybe_ pulls a smirk stitched back to his mouth. the track continues its harking melody, melts to his own baritone as two hands take the wheel in a turn. english suits his voice a crushing wafer between the teeth. he flicks ash out the window, names off the six hundred thousand (estimated) times he'd been left to listen to rocker chords, punk pop, fork tongs jammed in american sink disposal grates. and this one- good god the loop he'd been stuck in once makoto had sifted through kirigiri's paraphernalia collection kept from evidence bags long since unsealed. good god.

(and he'd meant to think _naegi_ , of course, because, hm, makoto? no, he doesn't know anyone by that name).

_"oh, am i still that man who makes you who you want to be?"_ knuckles grasp the wheel's top, and in the same western vernacular eloquence, "fuck you. stupid idiot cd. fuck you."

his thinned glare trounces away from the digital track listing to the pedestrian glancing from sidewalk jogging through his driver side right. togami flicks the rest of the cigarette to the pavement and curls the window up in contempt.

he decides to think it hilarious that restaurant chains still rest in endless strips along the city. the world's ending in hellfire, but that's all well and good as long as the milkshake machine is running. _how shrewd a wit, togami byakuya_ \- that's what he'd hear back to such shrewd wit were he taken to conversation now, instead of perched alone in his suv's front seat parked behind the grand golden arches. deemed is it only appropriate to stuff his throat with american fast food aside the symphony of american yowling, american guitar riffs to grate that headache he's yet to shake. he hadn't had small enough bills on hand to pay the cashier at the window. he sips ice cream through the thick striped straw. that had been funny, too. funny.

there's ketchup on his bottom lip when he goes to peel from the lot again. his natural twelve to one's drawing to a shut, he's sure even sans a glance toward analog, so he's a mastermind at the roaring foot pedals, leant forward elbows bent, gliding puck over ice the twenty minute cruise home in thirteen point eight.

the side door thunks on his entry. the side door whaps on his knee shoved forth exit.

"naegi," is the very first thing he's sure to spill after another thirteen point eight. carpet. tiles. sunshine reflecting. seated about the center circle break room table; hagakure's spinning some sort of maniacal tale around a mouthful of junk food, and asahina's there, too, stood bent forward the most idle in fists to high clenches, mouth traded for a ring that demands details to trip him every other syllable. _i was walkin' in the woods, you know, and i- which woods?- oh, you know, some woods. and there was this big ol' ray of light from the sky! and- are you sure it wasn't the sun-?_ and naegi- naegi, goddamn it! he's got the gall to laugh at the show, fingers clasped around something surely hip widening in a flour tortilla wrap, but the lid drops in his turn opposite by one shoulder, drapes an arm over his chair back and peeks upward to the name calling namecaller stood an arm's length away.

togami relents the cocked pistols of either pupil, feels them blown in adrenaline, shifts forward his grip upon cardboard handles. "here. ...i couldn't find whatever cd you mentioned. check elsewhere."

noses peek over the top of the box. naegi frees his hands to sit it to his lap, stares downward with those lapping tides to bottle shards eyes. he nods once, after a length of silence has drifted past in that staring, staring, choking staring to a half dozen folded tees plucked from closet bottom, lip balms and toothbrushes, stacked dvd cases he hasn't the thrill for. "oh...thanks."

the box's release renders him weightless in all the ways. and he nods to the dull toned appreciation, though it's been forced, though it's been tight, and he nods and he strides round the opposing direction catty.

"don't worry, your vibrators are in there, too," he says, can very practically feel the other's flush searing a tan on the back of his neck as he walks away. drive thru burrito wrap gags a wild roared laughter behind.

he smirks.

it's twelve:thirty five when he drops to his rolling chair again.

he frowns.

perhaps he's gone a tad manic as of the day late. emotional trauma can do that to a man, though he's lucky to have no experience with that and fingers his exertion the dirty culprit. twenty fi- four minutes to sleep will be plenty to challenge the night ahead, he decides, and burrows his face to folded arms atop his desk.

then it isn't the soft click of the door handle that wakes him, not the swan feathers padded over carpeting in approach. in his rest that hardly qualifies, sensations mingle fresh as morning colgate against him. those feathers- they're rushing water first that trembles across his shoulder, move to silk through his hair. lips mumble to his shifting. _mak-_

"togamichi, can i borrow some money for the bus ride home?"

though the voice has found its first whispering, he's lightning spined in an instant with palms forced gainst wood. hagakure sits on the edge, watching him over so delicate as his touch, and he beams to his awoken frame. "morning, buddy."

togami scrapes his throat raw in his exhale. his rolex gleams back a startling six-oh-something, but it's so fucking _cliche!_ that he can hardly be bothered to kick himself for it. his neck feels a den for fire ants. he stands stiff tall to a jacket slung theatrical over one shoulder.

"get in the car," he barks behind, grabs his bag and his everything in deftness before pulling the doorway cleared. the cheers to trail go ignored on the dual toned leave, and even in his conscious thirty seconds state he has the sense to be perturbed by her lean outside his door.

one boot bottom rests to the wall, arm folded neat cross the middle. the second rests a pole, cuspids demanding in their crunch through the pear's taut skin.

"five:thirty," kirigiri says to him in a swallow. if he'd gone to temples more in his youth, he's positive she'd choke on it.

"cash in two vacation days. i'm taking the weekend off."

"oh oh," calls soft over his shoulder, "good idea. me too, kirigirichi."

charcoal pins him. "hagakure, you have negative three vacation days left for the year."

palms press together in cowering, bows forward to her with excuses skirted along. togami drains his peripheral to stare her on straight, finds her gaze's flag already struck in the ground and tears to huffing made way for the double door exit.

he's feeling more himself after the day gone to repose, at the very least, clicks his seatbelt in with fingers tapping impatiently the top of the steering wheel. he's poised to lean on the horn until the passenger door sweeps open and the car jostles at the hop in, the slamming. hagakure takes instantly to talking his ear off, tells him thanks for the ride, he's a lifesaver, _a real lifesaver! mom couldn't pick me up today, 'cause she's fighting with the gas bill guy-_ and togami sighs into lax; miraculous.

the road's long between its snowbird edges. beneath him, night time is a delectable lover, casts them across neon and tanqueray, ten minutes of fogged windows and eardrums throbbing so gratified to a detour found underneath a coming overpass. he knows the trip'll drag him a mile's handful out of the way. ...but? but, well, he just knows that. hagakure goes through the details of his adventure at lunch today, says he drank so much cola it sprayed out of his nose, says he spotted a frog on the outskirts of the office building, says he wishes togami could have come with them, but maybe naegichi wouldn't be too happy with that. he clicks the left blinker on. oh, maybe.

hands have already begun to fumble with seatbelt by the time his headlights tease the coming lot. they both recognize the more dried mud than paint jeep parked ahead of them, to which hagakure proclaims giddy, unneeded, "mom's home!", and tosses a leg out of the side. a shift goes to the mid gear before togami realizes the other's yet to depart, rather fishing a pawnbroker's large greedy fingers through one massive outer jacket pocket, and togami hadn't heard the part in the story that mentioned thieving the slimy little demon up from the grass, but he's sitting fat to a proffered palm outward now. "say bye to uncle togami, horenso!"

the frog croaks idly. togami wishes soon to follow.

"get that thing out of my car before it starts to drip."

hagakure's billion yen grin shines below the waxing moon. he stands straightened, offers his mouth leapt to a paddle back, but rathers a dip forward of a finger. before togami's the stun ripped way to revulsion, the finger's already swiped across his lip, shown proudly out at the pad toward him. "ketchup," announces hagakure, pops it to a wet suck past his own.

he doesn't reciprocate the web toed waving after his reversal.

as soon as tires hit gravel, as soon as keys hit counter shoes to mud room jacket to closet hook, his all over ache is eaten up by his mattress, down comforter a hundred thousand threads and a hundred thousand yen.

and he breathes.

his body tosses to one side after a long while of soaking in inner mind squalor, because it's a winding maze to find sleep at seven:ten pm on a friday evening, harder still after a- one...two... -six hour power nap on his desk. still pangs his vertebrae to think on it. cheap food claws his insides all the more rueful, promises in groans to himself that a vegetable smoothie cleanse is on the morning's itinerary. and he finds himself facing the bed's grand center, and it's easy as all hell to fall asleep at seven:twelve pm on a friday after a three hundred minute power nap, and there's drool thin to navy green warmth trapping the second side pillow when a ninety nine cent rhyme taps his skull disrupted.

milk rims his morning eyes. a palm snatches outward, and he reads the caller id just to find out who's the audacity to tug his chain so twinned to dawn. the contact name yanks it harsher, and he presses it to his face quick enough to leave not the time for pulse to settle.

he's silent, waiting, waiting, gags on the shrill to his head. _"kuyachi?!"_

realization that he'd balked so at the surname to forget reading onwards and given ones exists hits him all too sour. he doubts his sharp sigh has been heard over the sniveling. "...what is it, komaru?"

at his voice crackled over the miles, her sniffles break into gushes from hazel, sobbing thick in her words. _"k-kuyachi! i miss you!"_

of all the people such a young girl has already to miss, he thinks it an honor to be chosen from the living. and she has no business ladling so much melancholy to his heart before sunrise, so he closes up shop and takes a snarling octave to tell her, "we had dinner together on tuesday night."

_"that was forever ago!"_ doves coo from her sopping tongue. _"ma-makoto's spent the last three nights at kyouko's house. he doesn't want me to see him so sad, but i'm even sadder!"_

to a sidelong glaring, his lips purse, and he lifts his head so heavy last from the bed in his rise to slide his closet door sundered.

"naegi spent nearly every night at my house," he says, because even though an hour has taunted, the conversation is still sticky in his throat as the onigiri is in hers. "you took no issue missing either of us then."

hardly does the air bustle around them; breakfast at a mall food court is so rare a first choice, saves them lone on a two seater side. teeth sever between her chosen mayoed tuna filling, fluorescent lights catching curiosity in her glancing about. he follows her gaze to the single other occupant of the space, some nobody with hair strands falling greasy along forehead and sight a gloomy downcast to a serving of ramen from the kiosk down the row. komaru trains a finger direct toward the stranger, cheek stuffed in rice as she says, "that guy looks like touko!" loudly enough to catch attention a moment. togami's lip sneers, and he demands her hand drop the juvenile impoliteness by a press of it to the table top. lashes blink to match his. "oh, right. what'd you say?"

his repetition is a forced steady. she slurps the straw of her milkshake while eyes rattle deep to thought, fixing only once over his shoulder again to peer at their surroundings before it focuses back, pops mouth as she spills, "well, makoto never comes home in a bad mood after spending time with you. and sometimes you stay at our place, too. i'm just so...lonely. it sorta reminds me of-of being in that apartment again, uh-" straw. milkshake. slurp. "he came home after work last night, and he had this big box of junk with him that he tossed under his bed, but when i tried asking him about it he got all choked up and said he was going to kyouko's again. he made sure i was okay first, though. and he left me money for dinner. oo! i ordered natto, from this new place they just built down the street, it was _sooo_ good-"

"he's upset?" togami rests folded knuckles beneath his chin. he isn't sure just exactly what he's meant by the inquiring; hopeful toward the positive, perhaps a tad. heart in the throat praying it minor, yes, mainly.

komaru proves no winning hand. "mhm. i'm...a little worried, i don't want him to get all depressed again. it was really bad last time, you remember." the last mouthful of onigiri muffles her next pondering. "what even happened, anyway? makoto wouldn't tell me. all he wants to do is lie in the dark and listen to sad music."

luminescence rests his hue. ramen broth is slurped discordantly behind him. he glowers, continues on traipsing through his thoughts, his wonders his wishes his worries. perhaps he's manic from sleep deprivation. perhaps he's slept seventeen hours out of the last twenty four.

"...tell me more about the natto place," he says, to which her eyes fill with delight.

once the week again lures him to a five five five jarring alarm beat, he's fogged at the lenses and even further so on the mind, and he cannot recall what he's just wasted two vacation days on (aside from the saturday morning mall trip, where he'd made a healthy dent in his credit swiped at every last point to ruffled pink or glinting silver studs on the racks). but monday slips a band on his third finger, props him up at his desk with ink scrawled within fingerprints. a mug sits to the corner as it always so must, and its contents chatter to approaching motion.

"there you are, lazypants," catches his gaze over the top edge of his computer screen. asahina's arms rest akimbo, her voice a gaudy falsetto to mock the new appointed nickname. she's grinning to him bold as ever, because they're friends, and she's asahina aoi, as orange a gogetter as they come.

all he can think, despite her warmth, is that in his life's single thickest period of alone, he's never had less alone time.

her teeth are domino iced to the backdrop of winter jogger's tan. "i didn't expect you to take the whole weekend off," she goes on. "did you get any of my texts?"

"yes," and he had, and she hadn't asked whether or not he had read them. he remembers so sudden a second aspect of the weekend past, the ten hour home spa soak in candles and rosewater foam, and his phone's vibrations played only background ambiance to his voice harmonizing with the most velvet of all revolvers. but, nevermind all that on account of the questioning inflection dipped upways toward him, asking him his attendance sometime nowhere, and to his begged repetition in a facial quirk alone comes a scoffing head loll.

"to the party tonight, you know, the one i sent you fifty messages about?" her cheek tuts, calls back the orphaned smile. "you'll come?"

god, a party- another goddamn party, for god's sake. he doesn't have the time of day for such a spec crushed beneath his heel.

"liquor?"

her eyes roll to the ceiling aside another dropped scoff, though it's all in good fun as goes her wink of starlight. "you know it. i already got hagakure to volunteer for dd."

something in him says no one will be leaving the premises tonight should that be the case, though he's got thirteen vacation days left and endless craves for jack daniel's beneath his tongue. "...i may make an appearance."

"great!" and her fist pumps giddy. "meet at kirigiri's by seven, and make sure you don't tell naegi _anything._ "

"hold it," he says on such instant their end and beginning have no true split. asahina blinks to him, to his held palm forward, clenched eyes laced in mortality. hard maple takes the heated lux. "...details."

conversation brews unrequited. she perches her slack shorts to the armless length of black sofa along the side wall, thumbs a jutting plant frond aside as she goes over the that and the this missed in texts ignored a day long. she's talking on about it, leans back to laptop nested and fingers steepled at the mouth, realizes at the trigger of _surprise_ _party_ that the flat dry erase calendar spread over his desk pin points this monday as that of february's fifth, and he hasn't the decision making skills to pick swiftly enough between running a shear along his scalp or cracking his forehead to asphalt. just for funsies.

"asahina." his turn to speak arrives after her ranting over gift wrapping ceases, melts margarine to iced skillet behind those hands. "you must know how poorly it would go over for me to attend my ex boyfriend's birthday party. you must."

when she stands again it is to draw nearer, to wave a hand nonchalant whilst the other lays to a hip. "oh, c'mon, don't think of it like that. he's not your _ex_ , he's your friend!"

"...that has sat on my cock."

murk washes across her face's shoreline, and those waving laying hands press now to cover it. "togami, that's _disgusting_. ...but, sure, if that's how you need to look at things."

his steeple sits unchanged as his whole form. where his lids attempt fall, asahina drags the attention back to her bound forward with palms sandwiched. " _pleeease_ , togami? we all wanna help cheer naegi up, but you need it just as bad. and he wants you to be there, really."

shoulders press a stiffened forward. "he does?"

"well..." and that's all it takes for his defeat to return, "he didn't say those exact words, but-but he doesn't even know the party's happening, so he probably would say it if he did. he would!"

"asahina..." index and thumb pinch the bridge beneath his white frames. they set back in place again the perfect timing to catch the almighty puppydog pout, and it's not so much he's a sucker for hers as he is another, but above it all, he's a people pleaser.

he just wishes people would return the favor.

lilacs wilt through his bloodstream as they pierce him up and down. "whenever you're ready to return my cd, that would be nice."

he coughs gas deep from his esophagus, and blows it ever the gentlemen in her direction.

the bird's eye behind his red solo is a myriad of interest. he's been inside kirigiri kyouko's apartment, inside her living room so many countless times in all their years aligned. cutthroat as of late, he decides they're no longer so close as to knight her a best friend, family even, at times of particular harsh, but rather some mess of aversion scattered atop him. death on two legs. his heart is the pear.

but- but fuck it, surely, because it's not about kirigiri or where she's padding away to now, it's about interest, and even more does it spark after a second dose of rum and sprite. the farthest corner is a stage production. cupcake pink twirls about komaru's waist as she spins and spins and spins and he swears if he keeps watching her there'll be bacardi soaking the soil of the potted plant behind him, but she's mesmerizing to other stammering eyes and that's all that he cares for; fukawa being busied by her best friend's newly spoiled fashion haul bragging is the richest lava cake he's ever dipped his silver into, the most wondrous most useful birthday gift, even if it's all come three months too early received. it isn't his birthday but another's, duh, naegi makoto's twenty forth rotation round the sun being divine as ever. or something. fuck birthdays.

"that's his car outside!" yelps asahina in her mad dash away from the window view. hush tightens the room at the middle, and she's skirting kirigiri along at the biceps to make for the door. one hand sets her drink down to the side table, he watches, and the match brings the knob swung flush once taps battle the outside.

the bright vibe is instantaneous. his heart melts like sugar in naegi makoto's civet smile.

"hi, kyouko. sorry i was running a little late, i-"

" _YAHOO!_ happy birthday, naegs!"

from all corners spring all walks of life, and there's hardly seven of them yet feels if a full stadium. naegi, most so, in his flinch to the weighted arm slung over the shoulders, the cup pressed to his palm from their oh so dedicated chauffeur. he's burnt at every edge from the attention splattered quick across him, only him, and togami would give it all to be wrapping arms round his waist and tongue warm to his, but he's not, he's standing a fat meter back from the rest drinking rum and sprite, watching his dream prom date his celebrity crush his one that got away be clenched by a hug thrown heavy at him, and he hears him complimenting idly his sister's new dress and sees his eyes drag past the crowd and go dark when she points an ebullient praise to the source.

togami waves three finger aside his plastic cup.

naegi stares a red string moment, then tips his head back to dump his own down awaiting throat.

the stereo on a side table gets cranked a dozen notches, and the night takes off handsomely. someone or other had dropped a grocer case cake (from whatever grocery plazas have so far attempted rehabilitation) to the coffee table and proclaimed they'd forgotten candles. after swift beats of dancing, chatting, drinking, other or someone had belted the first note of _HAppy_ _birthday_ _to_ _YOU_ and naegi had washed down two slices of blue frosted vanilla with another glass of jack and coke. more than whatever else there is to do, he'd like to have the guest of honor alone, just a minute's worth, even, just to talk, just to feel him. just to wish him a nice night and a healthy twenty fifth next. tell him he's sorry- he only had an hour to shop for a gift, so he hopes he likes it. but there's no getting him alone it seems, even at asahina's jostle of his arm with hers that sloshes booze across both their knuckles and wild laughter from her lips, and she tells him naegi's in the bathroom, now's his chance.

he can't place how much time's ticked from the party's genesis to now, or how much further trails in his graphite marmalade steps. but he knows once he reaches the washroom door, it slows overwhelmingly, like a rag stuffed in his throat like salt in his eyes, because naegi stumbles out of the bathroom after four brimmed cups of liquor and he isn't alone.

giggling saunters from his mouth, pauses to breathe, "oh, togami," attempts a straight spine, "dijou...did you need to use the...bathroom?"

none of them can place why he doubles forward into laughter, but kirigiri's at his side as she always must, props him righted and sends him onwards toward the blaring bass. kitchen hardwood neath his feet, togami, for a one time special, is speechless. he glances to the mingling, spies naegi's pathetic steps fumbling to find a seat on the empty armchair, and hagakure's there somehow some way filling his ear behind a fanned hand. flush colors his complexion darker than the inebriation, shakes vehement head atop neck when a point gestures the direction their way. its sole target commands his focus again, got him cornered away from metaphor in flesh gashing stare.

"i've had half a glass of alcohol," she says for no fucking reason except that women are _crazy_ , and hell, he'll drink to _that_. "you know as well as i do what a handful he is when he's drunk."

he'd like to tell her to just fuck off with the cryptic code and give him a straight answer for once, tell him no way in hell did her best friend just turn her straight for the night if only to lock chains of envy about his wrists. tell him no. tell him no.

"you're blushing," he says.

and she is, alright, but, "this sweater is wool."

arms fold over that white wool plush. togami thinks he fucking hates sheeps and he's pissed the fuck off that he's been made for such a fool, and three sips of rum and sprite turn white wool plush to wet tee shirt contestant runner up, and he snarls, " _fuck_ you, kirigiri. i'm keeping your stupid fucking cd. and i'm gonna put my cock right through the middle." maybe she reacts in delicious pique flagged back to him. maybe she slaps him silly and grinds a knee into his crotch, or maybe she just fucking _stands_ there, barely offers a blink to the booze thrown in her face. her bangs drip. he crushes the plastic under a step on his push past. "i'm going _home_ , happy _fucking_ birthday, naegi, i hope you like your _fucking_ present. where's my keys?"

"oop, you're up, hagakure," asahina calls from her lean on the couch arm that turns quickly to a slipped rest along the cushions.

"ah, man," he lifts himself to thumb through the blackhole sewn into his canvas coat, and togami can hear the jangles from his slumped stance with the doorknob the support. "i don't think- i think i forgot which ones are what ones, hahaha."

naegi lays an arm across his stomach at that, slouched still to the wide backed armchair and chortling a chorus. "hagakure, you got your license suspended, like, three months ago, why'd you even say you'd do the-the designating driver?"

"oh, yeah," he laughs, "forgot about that."

"where are my _keys?_ " he insists harder once he spots an approach from the peripheral, and kirigiri looks just the same filthy harlot done down to fresh pajama cotton and exfoliated pores. "i need to go _home_."

a sharp bark to the music dialed two notches left catches the attention of the sickly stillness at the sofa's far end, and togami had forgotten fukawa was even invited to this shit together as he hasn't smelled anything rancid lately, hasn't heard her foul words caress his temples since the head in her lap had fallen somehow to repose. but kirigiri has lilted the magical spell of revival, and komaru sits upright in slits of fatigue, bedhead a ruin, yawns so charming the princess that she isn't. her pillow shifts just after she does, and togami is a hawk's eye upon the unfurling backforth.

"fukawa," has clasped their obedient little intern into standing, skirt smoothing, "togami is very drunk. drive him home."

carnations explode in her irises, and she's already drooling puppy puddles to leap to his wary form. kirigiri kyouko is one nasty bitch.

" _don't_ touch me," bites he to her attempted mend of his posture. every bone creaks to standing tall, to calling refusals as dancing flame behind them. komaru tugs her petticoat from being caught in the door's slam on her quick slip out into the hall.

the stairs are a plight he does not recall, though he'll testify a next wake to soreness in the tailbone, but what matters most is his tumble to sit at the passenger side, and he's never seen anyone look so goddamn horny just from buckling another's seatbelt. "don't touch me," he hisses again, turns his head through the set of front seats. "komaru, make sure she doesn't fucking touch me."

"roger that," goes with her saluted hand to the forehead, takes his spot once he faces the windshield again to poke her nose far up between them. togami would guess the sharp swerve that sends her to a yelping toss backward is no driving error, and that's pretty funny. it's pretty funny.

stars glint along the first quarter mile, quiet suburbs in contrast to his palace. he realizes he's drenched at the forehead, at the underarms, and he proves his godlike qualities once the window drags down into its slot to free his head after fumbling along the door's full interior for the secret button he _knew_ had to be clipped somewhere.

(he doesn't know that secret button is located on the driver side door where all four windows and locks have their control panel, but fukawa thinks it's just delectable how she's played such a silent vigilantly to her damsel yet again, anyway).

the open air whips his face into chill. he gargles the breeze as his own, aeons of gold and wicker, of moon dust and atoms crushed up to become togami byakuya's personal atmosphere- they'd all fought to be right here, right now, lapping his teeth and betwixt his spread fingers, a child of the deities all grown up to steal their thrones. his head tilts to let the wind lick his smirking jaw. when lashes go to part, he's facing the jet black of nighttime above, and he swears he'll buy them a thousand acres in the countryside just so he can watch the stars at night, he swears.

polyester sips tight to his chest in a slump inside the vehicle. he doesn't care that the glass crawls back up to cage him off from his free glory- nothing's free and nothing's glorious, and it's been, what, five days? five days and he's already such a withering mess?

"fuck birthdays." a footprint hits the dashboard. fukawa flinches, glances a wild note left, and nods all her unkempt hairs into quivering.

"right, the-they're pointless!" she insists to match, "s-so what, you're a year closer to death? have some-some cake, _ahaha!_ "

whining takes his throat, and his hands grasp his ears and his shoe crawls higher up the side frame. "shut _uuup_ , fukawa. do you never get tired of hearing your own voice?"

tightened lips mutter around, _oh, master wants to save me from losing my voice- so considerate!_ before he loses himself so utterly in the night gone to whim.

"shut up, fukawa, it isn't _right_ when you talk, it isn't right. nothing's fucking right anymore." his shoe bottom sits nearly to the ceiling upholstery, knee tucked close to his mouth gooey in mourning. the tantrum files completion with fists pounding the seat beneath him. "i want my _boyfriend_ , i want my fucking boyfriend. take me to see makoto."

"kuyachi, we just left from seeing makoto," bobbles in komaru, hand to his shoulder. "i'll tell him you miss him, though!"

altogether he clasps into himself seated almost fully proper, faces her by a turn and admonishes through a sharp point. "no, you will not, because i don't miss him. he misses me, and my sexy ass."

preemptive, the point changes to catching the driver. "shut up, fukawa. don't agree that i have a sexy ass." scarlet overwhelms her face. one last time, he switches the guiding finger to their third in the backseat. "you. komaru. keep talking. you're just like your brother, more adhd than you know what to do with so you both just keep on fucking _talking_ , i love it."

the rear view reflects her blinks, her tilt of the chin, and she pops back to a summer lily to the tune of, "wanna hear about my new love live cards?"

he realizes as soon as he's ordered the car from his driveway that he never got a direct answer as to where his keys are.

pebbles are harder to aim than it looks on tv; several ping off the painted slats before he lands one to the rear most kitchen window, hopes to shatter the glass enough to kick it in safer than a full weighted barreling towards it. the plan makes sense in his head, though so had telling naegi komaru she could use his account to make as many itunes purchases and enhance her game skills as she so pleased just minutes ago, so he wonders where to draw the line exactly at trusting his judgement.

a rock nails the dead center of the window. he hollers a cheer for himself, hurls his favorite battle cry of the evening ( _fuck you, kirigiri_ ) and goes to launch another. it misses by a yardstick. he blames it on the horrendously foggy panes.

"fuck you, kirigiri." a pebble dings the paint on his trim. "you always act like you're better than me. like makoto likes you better, or _something_. you're annoying, and you're-you're stuck up, and your haircut didn't even look that good."

ping. "fuck you, asahina, for that time you slapped me in high school. i deserved it, but fuck you anyway."

fwip. "fuck you, hagakure. you've never done anything bad in your life, you're just a dumbass." his arm winds back at the pitcher's shoulder, and this one may have indeed shattered glass had it touched down anywhere close. "fuck you, fukawa, for existing."

flick. "fuck you, _makoto_ , you absolute troglodyte. you made me fall in love with you for six years, and then i finally have you and you leave me because i'm not _emotionally_ _ready_ to handle a relationship. well, guess what, i'm still in love with you, _asshole_ , and i kept your favorite hoodie." ping. ping. ping. his eyebrows knit close. ping. "i hope you miss it as much as i miss you, asshole."

rocks rest scattered as warfare shells along his house's back side. the gravel crunches a stimulating melody beneath his steps, ones that trail to find the lawn and stand arms wide outstretched in its lush. "i'm fucking  _drunk! fuck you, kirigiri!"_

gravity pulls him down ankles to ass to scapula til he's flat to the earth, pulse peppering between his eyes that stay numb to the world a throbbing stretch of night.

he looks up again, and he can't see a thing aside from the sun that's plastered his button up to his muscles in sweat, and he's glad she hadn't chosen to wear a skirt today since she's placed towering above his lain form.

keys pinch his still outstretched palm from their five foot drop.

"five:thirty," she says to him, and her heels eat up lawn seeds on the fade away.

he tugs a spare set of frames from his nightstand drawer, presses them to his face, and wonders how long he's had the smear of blue frosting on his cheek.

twelve vacation days left and a lifetime to burn. the pulsating hangover seems to last for all of it, soothed by shoeshine spells of sleep over nights, five:thirty one am clock ins and five:twenty nine pm clock outs, lunch breaks in his office, rides home to frogs and their men at dusk. he sees naegi on occasion (on constant occasion) when the printer jams or his slinks to the restroom are none too sly. it takes the sixth _oh,_ _hi,_ _togami..._ before the color of anger stops enthralling his flesh, stops thinking of the night at the party where _something_ went wrong, so wrong, starts thinking instead of his friend naegi, from the office. naegi who's a virgin to his touch. naegi who he spots a friday since, a cupcake pressed to his laughing teeth through the break room archway.

and that's the only reason togami knows at all that it is friday (though pinpointing which one, precisely-) because andou from division eight brings cupcakes to work every fri-day-af-ter-noon, and they're to die for, apparently, though he guesses it a ploy to use up the week's leftover flour.

but naegi's eating it, in the break room laughing at hagakure aside him with each hand grasping chocolate, and he'd wanted to slip in to grab his tupperware of slow simmered coq au vin from the refrigerator's back, he'd just wanted his lunch, but naegi's standing there, eating a cupcake, and his eyes flick above a monster bite to the newfound fridge glow.

"hi, togami," naegi says, frosting hot pink along his upper lip, still spread to smiling. that's the first unusual piece to the puzzle. naegi hasn't sputtered out any maladroit hellos, oh, haha sorry i'll go left-oh right-oh lef- he's just smiling to him, and hagakure's spewing a greeting of equal exuberance between bites of icing. naegi plucks a treat from the aluminum tray. "cupcake?"

focus shifts between it, back to naegi, all black suit black tie dashing litheness. he lifts the container in his hold, says, "soup," and walks from the room.

supposed, it's nice to not wish a double funeral upon every chance meeting. time has mended the rift, if only a bit, if only enough to bring them away from illness. he's almost prepped to reciprocate.

the next opportunity comes in murmurs passing his door, laughter and nodding muted. he watches naegi pass his ajar office door, that laughing and that nodding as the short curvy confectionist strolls aside him (he assumes hagakure's been left behind to mooch off more free bakery) raving about something most probably banal. togami watches- he doesn't _stare_ , he watches, the way naegi's got his middlemost finger pressed into his lips, the way he glances through that ajar door on his molasses glide past, melts lids to midst in a long lick up the length. broth drips from his paused frozen spoon.

then the entry's cleared and voices only echo dull, and togami sits straight backed in his seat to the spoon's drop, mouth tight eyes quaking.

double funeral- interesting.

but he isn't dressed the pallbearer, much prefers a casual neat ironed slack pointed toe loafer vest over button up look, because that's togami byakuya casual and he only turns his nose up slightly to her skort and faded tee ensemble for each day. fridays he knows are cupcake days, and saturdays he knows are be dragged around by komaru days.

he'd arrived home a premature four:thirty, dressed down and met routine. this week she'd chosen ice cream and hopscotch in the park, and it was only to his grace did rain come to splatter chalk runny cross the pavement. plan b is ice cream in his car's front seats, parked behind the familiar aching apartment building, and she'd looked so sheepish to the splotch of matcha to his leather upholstery he couldn't work up the irritation. she'd laughed at the damp napkin rubbed over her mouth and hands once cones were crunched and wrappers crushed, and he'd throbbed at the chest so violent in ill, a hundred memories, the closest replacement imaginable right down to the genes.

"there's a new movie that comes out next weekend," she titters sometime afterward. teeth gnash around the bag of gummy candies she'd dug about the glove compartment for a long while, because togami's suv is equipped to hold four carseats and one would think he's got them all filled by the amount of treat wrappers and sticky napkins left as her parting lingers. "a magical girl anime! can we go see it next saturday?"

noncommittal is his mumble back, for he cares not the thinnest what they do, though he isn't thrilled about sitting in a cramped theater seat for two hours with the antsiest mess of a girl to walk this earth (and he knows the hell first hand after so many times gone with both the world's most fidgety at his side, and they talk through the whole goddamn movie and take bathroom breaks every twenty minutes just to return with another box of meiji's) but it's not about the film or the whispered commentary, it's about...spending time with komaru. because she'd missed him. or. something.

her converse rest to the seat cover, knees bent up and jouncing. rain turns the evening even darker. he knows the setting sun signals a time closer to which the second occupant should return home, splits him to unease just slightly. he finds himself thinking less often of naegi, the past, though he'd found rest a demon the night prior with tongues and fingers and frosting dancing in his head. inane.

she plays the projection of his thoughts- the first, the ones pertaining to wonderment on when makoto should be home, not the others _never_ the others -to which he's tripped into his personal life again by way of asking after him.

komaru puckers her mouth, pops it back wet, lays an elbow to the center console. "i think he's doing better. he still stays at kyouko's some nights, but he's been home a lot, too." cellophane furls cacophonously in her grip to roll the bag closed. "he's sleeping better, too. probably 'cause of this weird noise playlist he started listening to. he likes to sleep with noise."

togami nods, and togami knows, and togami remembers the delicious flavor of, "digitized ambience," well.

"yeah," she nods, pushes the glove box closed by a canvas toe. "i think he just listens to bees or something, though. every time i get up to go pee i always hear _bzzzzzzzzzz_ from his room."

slats click to place. he hides his forming smirk behind a hand.

sidelong goes his glance out the driver side window. it's...charming to think on, though most prominent to his contemplation sits bolt on the hind legs, as even in the rain and in the dark he recognizes the dingy little corolla that slows along the side road, and he thinks perhaps the conversation has summoned him until the car accelerates again and goes to a loop around.

"hey, that's makoto!" she calls with a point past his stormy window. she's sitting up closer to glance his trail all the way vanished. curiosity takes her head in a tilt, before eyes widen to wonder at the vibration she rests back to tug from a pocket (a benefit to skorts- togami had heard all about it one saturday evening over tonkatsu and a book store trip). "oh, he texted me." she snorts in a chortle. right down to the genes. "he asked if you're here, 'cause he saw your car. i'll tell him," thumbs go to screen, "yep."

indignity crawls up his nose. "what, he's avoiding me now?"

her palms take another buzzing, and he's tempted to snatch it right out and reply himself, but halts to her sage. "he said, _i don't want him to see that i have someone with_ \- ah, crap." a black screen, battery flashing scarlet at the center, poises to their stares. "i knew i was forgetting something earlier."

" _komaru_ ," demands grit molars. the genes the genes the genes. "is he seeing someone?"

index to chin, she spills a long _mmm_ , says, "not that i know of. touko said she's seen him talking to this one girl at work a lot, though, and- well, she said she overheard something about making honmei chocolate together, but i think she hears whatever she wants to, sometimes."

"honm...valentine's day isn't for another week." ire builds up to pinched brows.

she laughs in a head tip. "valentine's day was wednesday, kuyachi! this talk was a while ago. maybe they-"

and that's the cut off point for his listening ear, falls inward himself to a detesting. droplets plink against the windshield.

...he supposes there's always white day.

for what, he cannot place, for he's no one to lay roses at the feet of save for his very own self. regardless of market scam holidays, it's the numbers that count, and he hadn't anticipated ever losing such track. everyday bleeds a similar note since falling back into step with routine. he'd had this before, stability, but he'd had too a reason to mark each calendar box off with a red check of success as he laid locks to pillow. things are different now, and that's ironic, because everyday is exactly the same.

he'll try harder, he thinks, cruising through side street sunshine, and it's a gorgeous saturday morning, and he knows that from checking his calendar, checking his mind, split it special in reserve. eleven vacation days remain, because matinees are better than punk rock back row makeouts and soda spills and sneakers on his seat back, it's just common sense.

pulling up to the curb outside the offset city complex knots his displeasure; he isn't anxious, hasn't been a day to his legacy, but bad things alone have come from such closeness. and bad things alone come from ten text messages unanswered, and he's impatient by nature and he's ascending the building steps to lay a fist to wood.

he's poised to call her name through it, until the knob jitters from the second side to his short haughty exhale. sleeping til noon is another coil in that dna he yearns to make a necklace out of, though he- he's blinking, since he'd expected groggy bedheaded naegi komaru to throw the front door wide and be poised to tug her kitty face pajama top off the moment he barks at her to get ready to go, but the fully awoken yet still bedheaded naegi makoto stands primped already, despite it a dress down day to sweats and tee. and when his dressed down sight places to the guest at the entry, his muscles all go to chilled. "oh...hey."

glasses push by a knuckle up the bridge. behind him, the living room is the neatest he thinks he's ever seen it aside from the times he'd tidied on his very own volition. "...komaru is not here?"

something in naegi's voice would most certainly speak disappointment's kiss were it not masked by pusillanimity. "uh, no. she slept over fukawa's last night."

"i see," and he does, sees the miraculous revival of naegi's home space on his absence, sees that komaru has chosen a dead jawed muskrat over him after making plans and he's only so mildly nettled, but what he does not see- or _foresee_ truly, is the offer that pairs with a swing open vast. "wanna come in?"

he shouldn't, but good god, does he ever.

the den's neatness, throw blankets folded and media center dusted, invites him just as well. entering the kitchen by the conductor's lead sets him righted likewise, dishes drip drying clutter caught from countertops, and he'd be just as at home (imperial) to take a seat at the gleaming center table even were it not a hundred breakfasts held atop (and a half dozen raw fucks after smirnoff and sinatra, but that's not an appropriate thought, togami-san, certainly not).

the place is so goddamn sparkling that he cannot find the anger to dispel when naegi's tip toe stretch up into cupboards whimpers that he's out of tea and a lemonade pitcher sweats into his fresh washed glass.

"you aren't at work?" a hand accepts the cup as ears do the ridiculous questioning, and his smart quip back that he could ask the same were he a blind man actually makes naegi laugh. he relaxes into a sip.

"i took the the day off," he responds to a hip checking the refrigerator closed, "i figured this place could use some spring cleaning."

_some_. togami takes another admiration circle, pauses his glance once it's found the box set aside the tabletop. from the height he's no issue taking inventory, and they're of an equal blanching to naegi's next admissions.

"oh, um...i was going to give that to you at work tomorrow." tightness mills about his form, dares hardly to watch as the box is tugged nearer to examine. "just some stuff i found while, you know...cleaning."

cleaning. togami sifts through, finds the box brimmed by shoddy folded button ups, recalls every last one taking the punctuation that he needed to stop stealing shirts from him to wear to sleep, rifles further to ignore the shovel at his throat; after shave and spray on burberry left in the bathroom's morning scuffles to three, trinkets dropped along the way, and it awes him just how much, well, _loot_ a person can drop over the span of ten months. he realizes only now that his own returning of the box of regret had been rotten a public display, thinks that's the point of this all to begin with. realization, understanding, growth.

answer does not find his lips, mere to a nodding and push of that box back original. his eyes are sidelong to his sipping. naegi meets the gaze, casts along one glinting wrist he covers by the opposite hand with a cheek darkened chuckling.

"ah, right," he breathes, "thank you for the birthday present. it was really thoughtful- once i got past the hangover."

silver and amethyst glitter along that wrist as he scratches the tile to a sitting. togami hopes he knows they're genuine.

"um." his thumbs rest fidgeting atop folded hands, and the lemonade glasses perspire to ruin the table's fresh wax. "actually, about that...i never got a chance to explain myself."

togami is far from minding the conversation's single side. his perked brow encourages naegi onwards. "i know the party was weeks ago, but- but i still want to let you know that _nothing_ happened between me and k-"

"naegi." at last light spots him. "your endeavors are not my concern."

shoulders stiffen, lax to his nodding downcast. "i know, i-i know. kyouko told me what happened the next day, though, and i don't want you to be upset, or anything. she just came in to keep me from peeing all over myself."

the attempt at humor would work to cut the tension were he any other man. stares clash, make for clenched swallows that beg forward. "naegi," comes again to quiet him. togami sits the same straight backed cross armed sharp jawed togami as he ever is was will be. "relax. i believe you."

relief floods him in such a theatric- and togami snatches it up in his half mask cape swishing, ever the murk lit entertainer. "i don't care what romantic choices you make. feel free to bang every woman you bring home from work, it's not my business."

his mouth sours a single fold. "i don't...automatically want to sleep with everyone now that we're broken up," he says, and it's the first time togami's heard it so blunt as to strike thorns along the drums. naegi drops his hands to his lap, leans inward enough to match one at his chest. "it's only been a month, i haven't even thought about dating again yet."

cleaning. yet.

"...i seem to have heard it differently."

he frowns. "what did komaru tell you?"

finesse flees from his collected expression, exterior bold. two fingers prod lenses into place. "it has merely come to my attention that you've made a hobby of bringing home dates and _hiding_ them from me."

"huh?" and he blinks, gears stiff in the brain. "when?"

the tape rewinds off togami's tongue. he watches naegi click into memory, hears his teeth scraping scoff. "togami, that was just andou coming over to help me make cookies. she's married, with a kid-"

"and just where does a married mother with a full time job find the time to come over and bake?" his eyes roll, temper flares.

knuckles tremble to a formed fist. "-and i didn't want you to see, because i knew you'd react like this." a breath goes out heavy. "you haven't changed at all, togami, you _haven't_."

his teeth should soon splinter from his maxilla's crush. "you have no right speaking that way to me."

even further draws his lean. eyes rest thin. naegi is all frail touches beneath cotton, all magma at the middle awaiting escape. his lips are plush against the plea; "then shut me up."

and _good_ _lord_ , what the fuck was anyone expecting?! what were either of them expecting, when he'd invited in his long lost lover and when he'd accepted the steps inside, when he'd brought up the birthday party and smelled the starlight in his eyes, when naegi makoto had run that smart mouth of his to olympic exertion and found himself with souvenir magnets leaving pressure tattoos on the skin of his back not two minutes past? because his fingers had found buttons and his throat had found bites, and togami byakuya is not a man who refuses the fogged window panes of challenge.

"fuck- ah nh- _byakuya_." it's everything he's needed to hear everything he's craved in the dead of night, and his palms are gripping naegi's nude thighs atremor to the mouth demanding on his neck. lips suck harder to the moans hot to his skin; lips go harder, thrusts go harder.

of course, he realizes this isn't a productive coping strategy.

" _faster_ ," naegi begs in his ear.

of course, he can't force himself to care this moment.

the breakfast table trembles in a push of the other down atop it. his hand shoves the _box_ off the surface and onto one chair bottom. arms twine beneath naegi's, hold him close in beat syncs and legs that wrap round his waist. it's wild- and _this_ , this is mania here and now in the hot pounding fuck, the glasses of lemonade that were tossed a mess into the sink because he didn't have tea, the nails down his shoulder blades that mix so lovely to a gasping buoy hug around the neck. makes up for all the ones who dared to dream of his place. makes up for every night spent beneath the sheets sweating writhing missing, every night set to the ambiance of a honeycomb.

_"makoto..."_ he allows, and nails do grate and hips do pound him twice the energy found. but it's not about the sex (maybe) it's about claiming what's his and all the rest, losing himself to time he cannot keep track of. _"i need you."_

it's over as abrupt as it began, ends with naegi's moans gone ravenous and that's his undoing likewise, fills him deep pressed and dares not draw to separate forms. naegi's panting, wet at the temples beading, and the feel of the grip around him loosening is every nightmare he's awoken frothing to.

"...i'm sorry," finishes the job. "i'm sorry, please-" and he demands himself freed to clutch arms inward covering. "please just-just get out, togami. leave."

that second has marched quick chasing, accounts for his lack of doing so in choosing a _sip_ to the buttonfly first. but naegi's crouched to grab his own bottoms kicked askew, stuffs legs to fabric so frantic he'd play a martyr envied. he glances up, makes togami realize he's been standing there the dope in glazed over gawking. heat caramelizes his lush face. when togami blinks, he is tugged to the surface by cardboard forced against his chest.

"get out!" is another order aside a point to the door, and he can see it, the fat dew drops piercing hazel corners already, and where he longs to comfort, he can only accept a door slapped shut to split him the hallway's lover alone.

forehead kisses steering wheel top the while following. leftways, the passenger seat soaks in nostalgia and shattered burberry brit.

at one hip chimes his phone; he's reluctant in every swipe, drags himself up to sitting straight for a read over.

_(12:27 pm) naegi komaru: sorry kuyachi im at toukos but we can hang out nxt weekend!!!!!!!!_

a read over. a read over.

his eyes rim red behind the saturday sun.

the next rolls onto the horizon sooner than he'd like.

"yuck, you smell like cigarettes."

sundays hold the least occupancy of employees. something about tradition, something about relaxing. he's there, copying a detail sheet of their branch's upcoming jaunt through osaka's outskirts. she's there, hovering over his shoulder scarfing bites of toast between her admonishing.

a paper wisps out the slot for his esteemed collection. "you can't smoke in the car with an asthmatic."

asahina smothers another slice in honey. "naegi's lucky then. smoking is gross, don't you know how hard your lungs work to support you? be nice to them."

athletes always seem to have irrelevant opinions. at least she's mentioned naegi by name, though, so his train of thought has an excuse to chug along there where he'd forced it away. naegi naegi naegi- he isn't in today, togami noticed long ago, noticed ever quicker the absence of their superior. and- _scoff_ -no doubt they're together, and he's yapping her ear off about all togami's faults while she spoon feeds him infantilizing consideration and caramel flan. _ohemgee kyouko he FUCKED me right on the kitchen table- no don't lift your plate up i washed it it's fine -he FUCKED me and then he left without even saying bye what a jerk!_

perhaps the midnight hour spent lashing shouts to one another had been in correct form. he isn't ready for a relationship, not when he hasn't expression in order none the trite. he isn't ready, but he likes a hard fuck and a warm bed, so he'd very much like to be.

but he thinks that there is a good first layer to pick at, because paradise is only paradise when it's superficial, when it's flashy, and he's sure the ultimate therapist in the building's west wing would thumb a gold star between his eyes for figuring that one out. he needs no therapy but that of internal, however, and it's a blessing that naegi bears too much hot shame to show his face anywhere near him the next full week. there'd be nothing to tell him he hadn't up and quit (aside, naturally, from the fact that naegi makoto is naegi makoto twice as hard when the world needs saving) were it not for the flits of him slipping a feline acrobatic into the office door beside his own, half glances in the break room and corolla wheels swerving from the lot. it isn't until wednesday that he at last spots him direct on, because his flight or fight chooses _freeze_ as togami's already shaken twice and zipped up into a turn for the sinks. the proximity chokes them, and it isn't until wednesday that naegi flushes ten shades of strawberry, a palm slapped quick over the neck as he ducks into the nearest stall.

suds froth over togami's knuckles. he hadn't known he'd left such dark hickeys.

another layer. another star.

the progress of their decimated wasteland relationship leaking a point so south contrasts heavy to his rise in soul's wealth, which he can't say he's glad for but knows it the tectonics needed just right to split.

that wednesday brings primal tension, and the one that follows blows on the steam.

a division head meeting to call on the events soon to busy them lets out at three:twelve pm. kirigiri had delivered flawlessly the details of branch fourteen's next mission, and he'd sat in the room that garners a hundred yen yearly electricity bill, scrawled notes in gel ink, checked his watch every millisecond. the door is swept open to a file out. he's astonished at the conversation she picks up with him, and though it lives meager, she'd chosen no sweeps of leg hind the knees, struts into her office whilst the crowd parts around his rooted elm form.

note paper falls to his desk top. the mug aside it is deemed far too empty, guides him in a grasp to a u turn. it's no shock to see tall piled brunette braids whiz by him so swift his necktie ripples, and he waits in the threshold for whatever follow up. the half minute proves null, so he steps forth in a measure toward the coveted percolator gold.

"hagakure, dont- _oof_ \- ah!" the afternoon entertainment is watching naegi's hands fumble for the mug he'd launched, nicked crash into his bicep on a tear past. they steady it caught after an exhilarating moment, brings a sigh from his lips as he hands it back. "i'm sorry, byakuya. i didn't even see you there, i'm trying to get my shoelace back from ha-" and togami had waited for this from the second he'd heard it, patient twice a consecutive; his cheekbones tint hot. "oh, my god. i'm sorry, i didn't mean to say-"

"it's fine," togami offers, blares cool to rival. "we're...friends."

it takes a moment, but he nods, loses the wide eyes mouth a touch hung crystal canteen blush, and he nods up to him, because it's been a month, it's been a week, and they're friends.

he snatches the long black cord from hands teasing high the second hagakure returns to their side. naegi laughs, and life is delightful for a bit.

because they're friends, and they're still friends the next wednesdays and all other around them. they're friends when kirigiri catches the newest stomach virus and they two alone are left to hold the whole branch together for three days with trips to her apartment carrying soup and moral support each evening (upon which he'd only accompanied once, because they're all friends, sure, but like hell will he be caught heaving into a bucket ten hours into the night just to say hello). they're friends when the vending machine in the break room gets a new shipment of refills, and naegi cracks a joke about the old times they dare never a mention, and togami is quick to say back that while he hadn't known what a vending machine is, at least he wasn't in pull ups until the fifth grade. but they're friends, so it's funny, shown broad in naegi's cough of water so harsh into his paper cup it soaks his hand and he _still_ can't help laughing. they're friends when pink floods the tree tops, and there's reservations for six at the newly opened european fusion restaurant half an hour away, because people say their profiteroles are murder worthy and asahina's not her brightest this time of year. conversation twists through champagne blushes, teeth agleam. naegi's seated diagonal to him, then, giggling to whoever tossed the last remark on boba tapioca. the chocolate smear aside his mouth draws togami's eye, and kirigiri tilts up to the nudge of foot on her shin. a table napkin ditches silverware. naegi blinks puppy eyes at the rub across his cheek, goes back to the chatter as soon as kirigiri relents to folding the fabric again. she glances up from her lap to him. togami fills his mouth with choux à la crème.

they're friends when he can't stop thinking about that night for seven more beneath no stars.

the mission date is set for the following weekend. he weighs every option he's got, draws blueprints in his head as it lays to the pillowcase. they'll all be busy, maybe that's what he needs. no distractions. all business.

the second side navy green cotton has lost most of its clung scent when he turns to it.

he spends the next four hours to sunrise crafting a perfected text message, and he hopes naegi isn't awoken by _ice_ _cream_ vibrating on his nightstand.

evidently not, because his attention isn't flicked off his computer screen until twelve:seventeen. it rattles upon his desk top, goes snatched and scanned. _yes you have my interest_ breathes back to his lenses' reflection.

togami replies precisely three minutes past to ask a guest for his ride to get said treat tonight after work. naegi replies precisely eleven minutes past that, just enough time to shoulder open the door to kirigiri kyouko's office and rave nauseous behind the latch, he guesses, to say yes.

but they're friends and they're getting ice cream together, never out of the ordinary, so he needn't justify anything and say he'd like to _talk_. and in candor, he's close to forgetting what it is he's even to say once naegi's across the table from him, blush loitering still from having to speak to their waitress, lifting his spoon to mounds of salted caramel and maraschino. he had called a scoop of mint for himself, because he doesn't care for ice cream and he feels it's all he's eaten for the last three months of missing it lingering in kisses.

"did you read that email from munakata today?" for a close eight, the diner is quiet, lights ticking luminescent. naegi spoons dessert to his chattering tongue. "i thought i was getting fired when i first saw it was from him."

his radar cannot detect if it is smalltalk or naegi's brain pushing out every thought it creates. he'd brought up the refill of the hall printer's colored ink on the drive over in such genuine enthusiasm togami had not the heart to refuse his idea for blue font newsletters. he knows naegi would marry his job at the future foundation had it a frilly brassiere to snap on, takes no issue with him going on about that and this. mint melts in his silver dish.

it's just, "i'd like to be able to discuss some things other than work," and his hands go to a fold. naegi's spoon drops to boast his postured listening, nods the other onward in eyes of tennis felt.

though he's been prepared for this his whole life, the second the spotlight hits, togami forgets all of his lines. and purely it's proverbial to compare odds and ends as so, but he takes the underlining to earn his third golden sticker; because he shouldn't have _lines_ at a time as the now. this act is full on improv, just what he feels and what he needs to say. "...i've had a lot of time to evaluate myself recently."

naegi perks his brows, continues on quiet to grant togami an opposite flipped nonreciprocation. a fingertip taps melody to the tabletop, then comes together with his second hand for clasping, searching the stare straight on. "i think you made some...fair points, the night we argued, and i recognize that i haven't been the best thing for you."

he knows naegi knows how to listen (he knows naegi snores when he sleeps on his back and loves his nigiri with shrimp and hasn't entirely conquered a childhood fear of the dark) so he knows naegi is listening, as he talks, as he pours the honey glaze of his core out for him to scrutinize. and that's terribly... _mushy_ , but togami hasn't the audacity to be bothered now. this is important. all business.

he's talking and naegi is listening, a common act spread out along blankets, robes, ribbons. something about thinking and wanting, realizing, understanding, growing. he can't place what he's saying because it's leaking out faster from his slow gait lips than he has the time to process, and he doesn't have any lines but he has...passion.

there's caramel on naegi's mouth when it bends to stall the quiet; "...thank you," he says, just that and just that's enough, because tokyo neon glints in his eyes and there's ten minutes to closing.

togami doesn't mind that he'd delivered such a speech to render his dish to full liquid, and all naegi has back to say is thank you, thank you for trying thank you for caring thank you for waiting up through the depths of dawn just to chastise me for staying out so late. his hands rest to coat pockets, and they're standing outside his mercedes (and naegi had made a comment about a midlife crisis when it'd pulled up to his apartment's curb, laughed, and togami corrected him _beginning_ life crisis) as the diner lights fade to lamps guiding tables wiped and floors swept. neither are sure, he's sure, what is being waited for or if they're conscious to the waiting at all.

"if you're ready," smokes that slow free fall, outside the car in open april air that twines around calcium to ache. "i'd like to try again."

he watches the breath draw into the other's chest, tastes the apprehension on it once it flows back out, but the countryside acres are an even kinder flavor on his teeth, and these kisses aren't harsh as they are wanton, and naegi's pushed up to his toes to wrap arms over his shoulders to ones around his waist, and that's just exactly what's been waited for.

they're still friends when they're tangled up in rich egyptian sheets, nips on the neck that chase _mm, really, makoto? sex on the first date?_ , holds tight against one another beneath the covers. they're friends but it cannot rest sole without pinning lovers to lapels, but that's symbiotic, which togami has wasted forever to grasp upon flush.

the jacket around the second pillow smells delectable again once it's had eyes rolled at and arms stuffed within. togami holds him despite the searing sweat that refuses leave, holds him to his heartbeat for a night to never ever ever drink sun rays.

once it does, must, he steps into the future foundation headquarters at seven am because there was traffic (not because they both have starbucks in hand), and asahina very nearly screams in delight to the kiss he takes on the cheek before naegi saunters off, row of wood mailbox slots around the corner taking his early spring simper.

"i'm so so so so _so_ happy!" catches his lips to subtle mirth as she catches his middle in a squeeze. the portrait turns thrice to a jolt of the skull boggled, asserts his premonition of needing a dry clean. "i love you, togamichi!"

"we have to have a party!" asahina insists, and hagakure's already spitting off a snack list before togami can find the ground to refute that basic life events don't necessitate celebration. he's freed when they pop off into planning, ranting, grinning, folds arm over chest aside a sip at macchiato, bats eyes left in it to a wafting draft. kirigiri's standing just at the edge to her office entry, pale beneath sun tinting her. she stares to him, and he stares back, and she lifts her mug to her lips to reveal the dark stained front of the white wool beneath her blazer.

he's looking at her still, across that room that breeds no whirring printers or coffee breaths, to where she's seated in regal causality on asahina aoi's living room sofa. there's space for six, six who've been drug through the dirt together by hot red acrylics on the scalp, and it's just exactly like a birthday party on february's fifth without the shock collar taunting his barks.

"kuyachi!" his eyes glint downward, and he remembers there's six with a plus one who belongs just as much, so dashing in her puff skirted white, a summer dress he'd bought her last may to match the handmade card he'd tucked in his nightstand twenty six days the prior. she's careful with her red solo punch as not to begrime it.

when he perks a look to her, she responds in arms tossed high (that ruins the pent up caution in a slosh to the rug) and he swivels eyes to palm her at the lumbar. her socks wiggle atop his polished loafer laces.

"i'm so happy." she grins as he picks up tempo in his steps. that's all he's heard the last hour's page. everyone's happy, and he's happy- he can say that. he's _happy_. "can we still hang out on saturdays, though? i still wanna see that movie."

he scoffs and tilts his gaze long over her head. somewhere, so does he.

"hey, komaru," magnetizes focus, "mind if i borrow my boyfriend from you for a bit?"

the room's lit lowly, party vibes, of course, melts to her lip gloss smile. she hops off, murmurs some sisterly teasing on her way past that spreads her into a madly laughing sock to kitchen tile slide when he claps a threat back just as loving. naegi gives a close smiled laugh, and their waists kiss to an arm around him that sends the smile brighter.

"having fun?" he asks, to which togami gestures vague with the drink in his second hand and replies, "i have alcohol and am getting laid tonight, so i'd say yes."

hazel eyes loll backward to a kiss on his neck. togami's sipping the sunshine, sipping the cheap fruity vodka punch, when the vibes lose their background billboard hits cut low to classic. the stereo shoved aside a far wall clicks to his vision, and kirigiri's placed herself there with the hostess at her side fiddling with its dials. asahina pulls an about face and prods two thumbs at them with a grin in the midst. the music's tender now to their hold just the same, because kirigiri had entered her office on a thursday morning to a velvet revolver cd, folded white cashmere bearing still the prada tag, and one side to a tissue box knifed down the center all placed on her desk.

naegi hums into a smile, and lays his head to togami's chest.

"i got that bracelet for you," togami starts quite the sudden, thinking on the party now the party then and the cool metal touching to his neck, "because i didn't think it would be appropriate to give you what i'd already bought."

they sway in absence, hips divine rocking. the others stand all occupied by chips in the teeth and jokes in the air, and it's only them it seems, dancing so idle to the tune of soil plush. "what was it?" fingers pull forward to rest on his neck, eyes pull back to rest upon his. circulation.

lips take a soft  _mmm_ before they take to his jaw. "twenty four carats to keep your finger warm."

naegi stills below the kisses, arms left poised up over the shoulders; they hook behind when togami breaks away to stand talled. bright green eyes- they're his everything, and they balk at him now, so he goes on in that charmer's voice of his, "i realize my motives were more vainglorious at the time. i wanted you for all the wrong reasons."

naegi blinks high to him. something in his face reads daydream. something, since togami's learned and thought but he's far from lost himself, that self who struggles day in for closed doors and day out for curtness. he'd think himself faulted for the now, yet still comes that nodding and the breath that moves, "someday."

togami inhales luxury, then leans forward to kiss the love of his life.


End file.
